Aphex Twin Announces New CHEETAH EP with Fake Instrument Ad

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Obscure. Esoteric. Prolific. Those are all words that could be used to describe Richard D James (aka Aphex Twin). The enigmatic producer continues to rely on mountains of hardware to make his music—an M.O. growing more and more outmoded in today’s Ableton world. “have to say to anyone reading this at this point you dont need any hardware to make electronic music apart from a computer, thats it,” he said in an unedited chat interview last year. “you have to be slightly mad to want to use hardware these days, its just what ive always loved for many reasons, so i keep doin it, its what buzzes me up.”

Cheetah was teased yesterday when record stores posted mysterious flyers they’d received online. The vintage-looking promotion advertised the EP as some kind of electronic instrument: “To assure you that your Cheetah EP will give you many years of enjoyment, please be sure to read the owners manual carefully before attempting to operate the Cheetah EP.” It also included the logos for both Aphex Twin and Warp Records, so it wasn’t difficult to put two and two together.

For those slow to the punch, though, James confirmed the news this morning when he tweeted a link to a website for the EP, which depicts the aforementioned flyer in all its tongue-in-cheek glory. Cheetah arrives July 8 via Warp.